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I want it to be full of options and twists that appeal to me, the Dungeon Master. The current DMG falls flat in that regard. It's a bloated nothing. The Chase rules are bad, there is nothing in there to assist me with sieges or mass battles, there's no "Skill Challenge" mechanic to field...

From my perspective at least, it's very inflexible. 5E is a superhero fantasy game. You can't turn it into a horror game; you can't tweak it into a gritty/low-fantasy; it is superhero fantasy. It isn't LOTR - it's Marvel Superheroes with swords and spells. Further than that, it is a...

This is my main issue with the DMG. It has nothing interesting in it. The biggest changes it allows you to make to the 5E chassis is to increase or decrease the length of time required for a Long Rest. That's it. I recognize that most of this is due to the inflexibility of the 5E engine, but...

4E monster design was absolutely top-notch. Basically zero competition in that regard.

It's not 5E, and it's not out yet, but Kevin Crawford just announced a "[Post-Apocalypse] Without Number" book. It's an OSR (Nu-SR?) style game. I can't vouch for anything about it other than the system-generic stuff (like the world-building tools) are top-notch. I'm toying around with a...

Companions (not just animal ones) are a thing I tinker with the most. My players love tagalong NPCs ("add to party" is one of their favorite sayings), but I hate running them in combat. I'm like the opposite of a DMPC. So far, my favorite method with companions is to let them act like magic...

For 4E, the adventure I got most of a kick out of was "Madness at Gardmore Abbey". It's about the Deck of Many Things, but (and hopefully I remember this correctly) sets the deck up as the MacGuffin (and kind of the villain?) of the story.

I'll consider them if it's from a reputable source/company and has positive word-of-mouth. Generally, I'll pick up most Chaosium adventures, because at the very least it's an interesting Lovecraftian read. I rarely run them, and if I do, I basically rip out 50% of it and replace it with...

I loved 4E (yes, I know), and while I liked 5E when it dropped, over time, the issues became bigger and harder for me to avoid. Specifically, I dislike: the spellcasting system haves vs have-nots "I Win" buttons having to act like a lawyer to peruse spell text limited GM support, and terrible...

I'm a fairly "normal" millennial, and I actually unequivocally love Episode III. I have a soft spot in my heart for Episode I, but I don't find much redeemable about Episode II.

I did a Reroll (see: Film Reroll) of LOTR in Savage Worlds, and it fit the bill better than 5E would've, I imagine. Aside from being more cinematic, SW let me turn the dials on the level of magic in the world, which is the biggest problem (IMO) with 5E feeling like LOTR. The player playing...

I've had people get into D&D expressly in the desire that, "it'll feel like LOTR!" only to come away disgruntled because it's designed more like World of Warcraft than anything Tolkien wrote (and I'm talking 5E, not 4E). So I mean, I still feel like outside of the flavor text WOTC writes at the...

That might have been the case in the 70s, but near 50 years later, 5E's ranger is not even in the same ballpark as Aragorn. The only similarity is the title "ranger".

I like the Ranger fine, so I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I gotta mention: LOTR Aragorn is not a Ranger. In fact, basically every character in LOTR is a fighter (Gandalf would be like a Fighter 5/Wizard 3. LOTR is a bad example to use for D&D classes; LOTR = low fantasy, D&D =...

You discuss it in Session 0? The way we do it, everybody sits down and talks about the "big picture" idea for their character. If something doesn't jive, you talk about it. Compromise. Come to a solution. When I DM, I don't do fantastical races (yes, I'm a tyrant). So that means no...

Honestly, just take the Savage Worlds Fantasy Companion "Stronghold" system, and make it 5E. The Bastion system, as/is has many problems, but also it is so needlessly complex. Instead, just do: Everytime you level up, your stronghold levels up as well When your stronghold levels up, you can...

Yeah, I have zero interest in the Bastion mechanic as we saw in the UA. It needs a total redesign for me to get interested. I was pretty excited about a Bastion mechanic when I first heard about it, but the UA was a total misfire.

75 Feats, most of which you've already seen, some of which have even been slightly tweaked! WOTC'll take your $60, now.

Savage Worlds really changed my perception of this. So much game in just 200 pages. I feel like I've gotten more out of the 200 pages in Savage Worlds Adventure Edition than the near 1,000 pages of the PHB, DMG, and MM combined. Hell, the 40 pages of the "Adventure Toolkit" from SWADE has given...

On the DM-side, unless you want to get bullied by spellcasters, you've gotta embrace the Adventuring Day. I said this in an earlier thread, but you can't just make an encounter to fight the Elder Brain; you've gotta first have a mindflayer fight in the creepy-brain laboratory, which leads to...